1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ball catching apparatus having first and second cover members which are provided on a non-ball-catching side of the apparatus for forming a thumb inserting portion.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional baseball glove (to be briefly referred to as `glove` hereinafter), as an example of a ball catching apparatus of the above-noted type, has a construction as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7. In FIG. 6, a thumb inserting portion H surrounded with an alternate long and short dash line in the figure is formed by a left cover 40 and a right cover 41 as viewed from the non-ball-catching side of the glove. These covers 40, 41 are sewn to each other via a string member 42 by means of an unillustrated thread. FIG. 7 is a section taken along a line A--A in FIG. 6. As shown in this figure, the covers 40, 41 respectively include, at the mutually sewn portions thereof, projections 40a, 41a projecting into the thumb inserting portion H for facilitating the sewing operation.
On the other hand, inside the thumb inserting portion H, there is provided a thumb hook member 3 to which a user's thumb is to be hooked. The thumb hook member 3 includes a connected portion 3a, a knot portion 3b and a loop portion 3c. And, the thumb is hooked to the loop portion 3c. The connected portion 3a is fixedly connected to an inner ply 5. This inner ply 5 and an outer play 4 are provided on the ball-catching side of the glove. A cushioning felt 6 is interposed between the outer ply 4 and the inner play 5, the outer and inner plies 4, 5 are connected to each other by means of an unillustrated thread. In these manners, the thumb inserting portion H of the glove is constructed.
However, the conventional construction of the thumb inserting portion H has a problem to be described next.
As shown in FIG. 7, the projections 40a, 41a of the covers 40, 41 tends to hinder the thumb inserting operation and also to press the inserted thumb uncomfortably.
For solving the above problem, it is conceivable to bulge the portion of the thumb inserting portion H in which the thumb F is to be inserted and accommodated, as indicated by a dot line I in FIG. 7. In this case, the side edges (i.e. the sewn portions) of the covers 40, 41 need to be bulged. With such bulging arrangement, however, since the side edges present curved shapes, a length L0 of the side edge of the cover 40 becomes shorter, while a length L2 of the side edge of the other cover 41 becomes longer. Accordingly, the sewing operation of these covers 40, 41 becomes difficult.
Further, the thumb hook member 3 is movable in the direction toward the little finger side of the glove (the direction denoted with a mark E in FIG. 7). Thus, the thumb F inserted into this thumb hook member 3 tends to be dislocated from the core of the felt 6 (the width-wise center of the felt), thereby to make it difficult for the force of the thumb to be transmitted via the felt 6 core to the ball-catching side of the glove. This makes a ball catching action difficult.